The Game of Desire
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: What if the characters from Westeros were courtesans in the Night Court of Terre D'Ange? Cersei - Mandrake, Jaime - Valerian, Arianne - Jasmine, Margaery - Orchis, Daenerys - Dahlia, Petyr - Bryony, Sansa - Balm, Lysa - Cereus, Bran - Gentian.
1. Mandrake and Valerian

**Mandrake** \- _Yield all_  
**Valerian** -_ I yield_

* * *

_One pair was from _Valerian House, kneeling __abeyante__ with lowered heads. One pair was from_ Mandrake House, faces hidden behind domino masks._

**\- Kushiel's Justice**

* * *

He has known her flechettes to part his skin like silk and the brush of a lash to burn like a kiss and leave him aching for more. But this, surely this, must be the choicest and most consummate of her tortures. The ones she devises only for him.

Cersei makes him watch.

Not bound to the wheel nor chained at her feet, either. "You will watch because I bid you to," she had said, trailing her pointed, scarlet nails along his shoulders, "and surely my pleasure should be above your own?" Viciously, she twists his wrist. "_Cripple_," she hisses. She has never forgiven him for losing his other arm, for marring his beauty and becoming less like her. His stump revolts her, she is not shy to remind him.

And before he could reply, she had begun to move her hips, her scented golden hair falling over his face and he found he could not speak at all.

The boy she has brought has scarcely come of age, some nineteen years out of swaddling and with a belly full of young cock-of-the-walk desires. A tuft of dark hair falls into his laughing black eyes. A well-made lad, he has to admit, with a face made for smiling. He smiles very widely when he sees Jaime lounging on the couch. Jaime wishes for nothing so much as a sword, even a hammer will do, to smash those pretty white teeth and carve the boy a red smile.

"Brother," Cersei says, smiling creamily. The damn bitch has the temerity to dimple at him. "Will you not greet our guest? This is Theon, a scion of House Greyjoy."

He raises a hand in languorous indifference to the stripling. His good one.

Cersei clucks, determined to leech him to the very last drop. "That was ill done, Jaime. Lord Theon will think we have no manners at all."

Slowly he rises and sweeps the boy a bow so elaborate as to be farcical. "Be welcome to my sister's cunt, Lord Theon Greyjoy," he says, gritting out every word. "Tight as silk and sweet as honey." Cersei opens her mouth, no doubt to bid him kneel to greet their guest, lick his boots to a shine perhaps. "Don't push me, sweet sister," he says quietly. "Lest I call upon my own _signale_."

He has never used the _signale_ with her before. Never, even though the marks of her love have been seared into his body. Somehow they both know that when he finally does, nothing will ever be the same between them again.

The boy raises his brows at Cersei. "Will he be here throughout?"

"He will," Cersei murmurs.

Now the boy looks uncertain. He had not thought past the savor of bedding the Golden Lady of House Mandrake, not as a supplicant as but as a master. Of flaunting it in her brother and lover's face and bragging to his young companions of how the lion sat in silence and let him maul his mate. Cersei _no_ Mandrake cared naught that to his lord father, he was but a pale ghost of the sons he had lost. Cersei _no_ Mandrake had chosen _him_ above all others.

She cups his cheek. "Nothing is free in life, sweet. You ought to have looked more closely into our contract."

"I-I did but I thought you were not serious about _this_."

"I never jest," she says dryly. "Not where business is concerned. Or," she says, with a nod to Jaime, "desire."

"I thought that you would submit yourself to me!"

"I will. It is not my wont," she says. "I prefer to... shall we say, dominate? I am of Mandrake House, just as my sweet brother is of Valerian. We are well mated in our desires. I make an exception tonight, though." Her green eyes flash and she puts him in his place neatly. "For my brother's sake, not yours."

The boy scowls and tries to stand up straighter, to look more the man and less the trivial worm he really is, caught and crushed between two overpowering desires. "Your _signale _is Joffrey, Madame."

"My son's name," she says. A fatherless son. She has never revealed his parentage to the world, to do so would bring shame and damnation to them all, even in Terre D'Ange where love is the only canon.

"I am well aware of that and of the other stipulations of our contract." He grows hotter and more flushed with embarrassment by the moment, her cool composure discomfiting him even further. This is a boy touchy of his honor, one who does not like to be played for a fool. "Shall we begin?"

"I thought you would never ask." She inclines her head gravely and Jaime grits his teeth as she slides her arms out of her loose green silk robe. She unknots the darker green sash and it slithers down the length of her body. In the candlelight she is incandescently beautiful and every fiber of his being is screaming at him to take her away, to cut Theon Greyjoy's lecherous eyes out of his face for daring to look at her so, to lay her on the couch and use her until she cannot help but scream for release and mercy, until her whole world is only him...

But he makes himself watch, because Cersei has bidden him to. His sister knows her game too well.

"Use me as you will, my lord," she murmurs, shaking out her golden mane. "Let us begin."

Theon Greyjoy needs no second bidding. With a laugh, he slaps her face so hard her head snaps back and then grabs her by the hair forcing his tongue into her mouth. Yet even as he uses Cersei, even as Jaime's hands ball into fists and his nails leave welts in his palms, she manages to turn her head the tiniest angle and wink at him. And even as she lets her pliant body yield, she lets him know exactly who is in charge.


	2. Jasmine and Orchis

**Jasmine** \- _For pleasure's sake_  
**Orchis** \- _Joy in Laughter_

* * *

_Jasmine... ah, there's adepts at Jasmine will leave you limp as a dishrag, half-drowned in the sweat of desire._

**\- Kushiel's Scion  
**

* * *

_He may have been her gift, but Mirette no Orchis possessed the secret of bestowing joy in the act of worshiping Naamah. That is the canon of Orchis House, and that secret she shared with Alcuin._

**\- Kushiel's Dart**

* * *

Jasmine House is a twilit world, of blue-plumed incense smoking in bronze censers and colored silks that cut off the light. Of leaden looks, heavy with knowing, of lovers' sighs. Born and bred to it, it is almost everything Arianne needs. Almost. Betimes she takes herself to Orchis House, where laughter chases the shadows away and where Margaery _no_ Orchis, spinning her toils, waits for her.

Her chin pillowed on her arms, Arianne watches her oldest friend toy with the stem of a gold rose, a patron-gift of rare workmanship. Beneath a pale green gown, molded to her figure, the younger girl is naked. The fabric is more water than silk, Arianne reflects, enjoying the view. It cups Margaery's small, high-set breasts and rounded buttocks. Behind a cornice of embroidered gold leaves, a pale nipple peeks out.

"Ohhh... visitors," Margaery says, propping herself on the window-seat. Arianne turns lazily, watching a pair of young lordlings dismount in the courtyard. She knows them of course, the uncle and nephew cast to the same mold, both red-haired and blue-eyed. "I will have the young one and you shall have the old."

She makes a moue of playful disappointment. "I know Edmure Tully," she sighs, clasping her armlets above and below her elbows. They are carved like snakes, their scales interleaving gold and ivory. No patron-gifts these but treasures brought from Bhodistan, a reminder of her heritage. Arianne watches Margaery take the measure of them, not even bothering to conceal how much she covets them. But then Margaery's grandmother was an adept of Bryony - little of value escapes her notice."We call him the Floppy Fish at House Jasmine."

"Why?" Margaery laughs, diverted. "_Oh_..." She reflects a moment. "The wolf-cub is sixteen and boys at that age are not apt to disappoint. Such a blushing beauty - oh but there is nothing more ticklish than innocence, is there, Arianne?"

If she had been anyone else, anyone but Olenna _no_ Bryony's granddaughter, Arianne would have thought the words spoken in all innocence. _Arys. _The memory of her white swan is like vinegar in an open wound. As Margaery had doubtless intended.

_How can you call her friend? _Nym was wont to ask. _She has the face of a flower and the heart of a snake. No, forgive me. That bitch has no heart. _And Arianne had no answer for her cousin save the true one, the foolish one - that Margaery made her laugh. _Aye, _Nym had agreed with a sharp smile, _that's what she's been trained to do. To laugh you into your ruin. _

Arianne bends to lace her gilt sandles. They reach to her thighs and it is slow going with her trembling fingers. "Innocence is a precious gift," she murmurs, "to be treasured, not made mock of, Margaery. Be gentle with young Stark."

"He's a pretty thing," Margaery agrees, kneeling before Arianne to help her. She touches her knee in reassurance and then her fingers travel upwards, massaging her inner thighs. "It will be no hardship to be gentle with him." They have played this game before, Arianne thinks, jerking away from Margaery. And it has never gone well with her. Margaery, still kneeling at her feet, looks up with a teasing smile.

"We must not keep our visitors waiting," Arianne says breathlessly. In Jasmine House, they are never taught to give the lie to their desires - is it her fault that Margaery's touch makes her breath quicken?

"If you say so," Margaery only says, putting up her arm for Arianne to haul her to her feet.

The foyer is a riot of autumnal color - scarlet and umber leaves and golden flowers. Laughter and the music of harps ring through the marble hall as patrons and adepts chat and cup-bearers circulate with flutes of summerwine. In her flame-colored silks, Arianne feels a part of the display herself, even as Margaery in her gown of cool, springlike tints stands starkly out. Edmure Tully beckons her with a crook of his finger.

"How may I serve, my lord?" she breathes, kneeling _abeyante _at his side.

He curls a tendril of her black hair around his finger. "You must be from Jasmine House."

"My lord is correct."

"I have little use for Jasmine House." He grimaces. "A woman there once played me false."

_Meaning you could not please her and she was fool enough to spread the word. _Of all the houses, the adepts of Jasmine are the least like to hold their tongues or to submit to any desires save their own. "My lord must not judge us all by a single woman. Perhaps I might change your mind?" She bats her eyelashes at him and he relents with a young man's good nature.

"Just this once then, sweetling," he says, tumbling her on to his lap and nestling his face in the crook of her neck. "Cinnamon and cloves... Blessed Elua, you smell like a spice market. Exotic." _Margaery will smell of roses, _Arianne thinks. From as long as she can remember she has always done so. As she curls her hands through Edmure's thick auburn hair, she longs to bury her lips in Margaery's, to sate herself with her scent and taste.

From the corner of her eye she watches Margaery perched on the armrest of Robb Stark's chair. In the middle of a most animated story, she begins to wave her hands about to illustrate her point but Robb has eyes only for his uncle. He squirms uneasily as though the sight of them discomfit him in some way and Margaery breaks off in the middle of her story. The boy does not even notice until she raps him sharply on the head and clucks at him.

"My lord," she complains and then giggles when he blushes and turns again to her. "I have had the most naughty idea, my lord. Will you list to me?" She bends forward, a curtain of brown curls shielding her face but not Robb Stark's. It turns quite as red as his hair when she finishes and addresses herself to Edmure. "A showing!" she says brightly. "Of the greatest beauties of Orchis and Jasmine."

"I am not sure we are the greatest beauties-" Arianne begins to say. Her uncle Oberyn and his second daughter, Nymeria - none can match them for beauty, for dazzle in Jasmine House. And in Orchis House, Margaery's wit and vivacity is accounted of greater worth than her looks which most are wont to describe as only passably pretty. There are prettier girls, Shae for one, Elinor for another.

"-the most skilled then," Margaery says quickly, "the most desirable."

"I like it," Edmure Tully announces. His nephew looks as though he has been sitting on a porcupine. "Oh come, come, Robb," Edmure clucks, "you're not a babe in swaddling any longer. You're of age and I mean for you to enjoy yourself!"

"My lord father-"

"-is a good man in his own way but never was one less suited for the city." Edmure claps his hand on Robb's shoulder. "You know all you need to of country living, Ned's seen to it. Now I say you put your faith in your uncle just as I put my faith in mine when I was your age. Live a little. Learn to love."

"And to laugh," Margaery murmurs, trailing a finger along his lips. "At the world and at yourself, young lordship." _I'd like to see this one laugh at himself, _Arianne thinks. Margaery tugs at her hand. "But now is the time for lust, I think. Come, come with us."

"A private showing?" Arianne hisses in Margaery's ear as they escort the lordlings to the payment rooms.

"Don't you want it?" Margaery whispers back, not in the least abashed. "I thought they might enjoy it... the trout because it'd take the onus of performing off him and the wolfling because... well, I think he's the kind that likes to sit back and watch like a king."

"And what about me and what I want?" She cannot help the plaintive note that creeps into her voice.

"Oh," Margaery murmurs, slipping an arm around Arianne's waist. Her fingers slide beneath the loose silk and rise to cup her breasts and her already stiffening nipples. Margaery gives one a little tweak and whispers, "I already know what you want, love. Me."

She has not even the will to step back. _A doll, _she thinks, _I am little more than_ _her doll. _"And what do you want, Margaery?"

"To laugh." Her brown eyes, almond-shaped and fringed with thick dark lashes like a doe's, sparkle. "To spread joy."

_To profit, _Arianne thinks, noting the way her friend's eyes dart to Robb Stark. Assessing, measuring, reflecting.


	3. Dahlia

**Dahlia **\- _Upright and Unbending_

* * *

It is said when Naamah gave herself to the King Persis to earn Blessed Elua his freedom, she approached the King of Persis with the regal bearing of a queen, and her bearing caused him to treat her as an equal, the only person capable of understanding his desires.

* * *

"How your heart must be breaking," Bellegere murmurs. She calls herself The Black Pearl, as her mother and her mother's mother did before her, but baser blood has diluted the pure ebon of the first Pearl's complexion. This one, a pale rendition of those before her, is more brown than black.

"A heart can break in but one way," Daenerys says, "and mine has not." She might have been lichen on the wall for all the notice Bellegere took of her.

"I know mine would, to be placed in your situation. The shame of being paraded on the barbarian's arm like some spoil of war would kill me before I lay beneath him." Bellegere frowns in concentration. "Or no, not beneath him. I remember now, the horselords fuck their women as a dog mounts a bitch - from behind."

"Lewdness does not become an adept of Dahlia House," Daenerys reminds her, a touch of asperity in her voice. _That should be left to Jasmine House. _

"Growing up we are taught that to be coarse or crude is the greatest of sins but look at you," Bellegere says coolly. "You shame your house by bedding with a savage from the grasslands and for what? Is the luster of gold grown so bright that a daughter of House Targaryen should sell her maidenhead for it?"

_It was not a daughter who decided, but a son. _"The Dowayne raised no objections. It is not your place to do so now." She tries to make her voice cold and hard but it is an exercise in futility. She has been bred to Dahlia House from childhood, she is a princess born but the hauteur that comes so naturally to the other adepts she has grown up, to her own brother has never come to her.

Bellegere laughs as though at the feeble mewing of a kitten. "Your brother claims your bloodline to be rich and storied," she says, with a toss of her raven's wing hair. "Across the water, you were a princess born. But you were not born to the Thirteen Houses, not as I was. The Dowayne will _never _see you as she sees me. There is only one part of you that interests her and that's the purse between your legs."

She stands with her hands on her hips, gemstones winking in the coronet of hair piled high on her head, her golden gown as soft and luminous as candlelight. A fine gown, but Daenerys' - a gift from the khal - is finer. Bellegere stands in all her glory but the truth comes to Daenerys in a flash and she laughs incredulously. "You're jealous," she says, marveling at the sweet simplicity of it. Even pearls can crack and the dark flush spreading across Bellegere's cheeks confirms her guess. "You're jealous that my maidenhead was bid for and won at a higher price than yours."

In the Night Court where such matters are minutely inspected, intimately measured such a thing must have been a source of great shame. Bellegere will have heard the whispered taunts, the breathless laughter of fickle friends and rivals whenever she sweeps into a salon for months.

"I have my pride," Bellegere hisses. "I would rather die than be fondled by a stinking savage."

"A stinking savage," Daenerys repeats. "Do you know, Bellegere, I have been studying the Dothraki for the past few months, so that I might make myself more pleasing to the khal. I have studied their customs so that I might not unknowingly give offense, their language so that I might better give service and their history for pure pleasure." The Dowayne had approved when it came to her notice. _Beauty always fades but some are given the gift of grace. And what is grace but wisdom distilled, the fragrance of the dying flower?  
_

"What, do they have any history to speak of?"

"Their warriors braid bells into their hair after a victory. After a defeat, they cut their hair so that all might know of their shame. You might call the practice unsubtle but I feel that it drives home a point." She pauses. "You must see Khal Drogo's hair at Lord Rousse's ball tonight. It is quite magnificent."

Viserys escorts her to the ball that night. "You look well, brother," she tells him and he does. His silver hair is drawn back from his face, highlighting his high cheekbones and the sharp angles of his face, reducing his thin face almost to gauntness. Few men would have dared attempt it but it only serves to emphasize the severe beauty of his face. "Is the tunic a gift of Lady Novrelle's? It is exquisite." And it is, the soft violet tints bleeding into eachother a match for his fever-bright lavender eyes.

He glares at her and she knows she has misspoken. He does not like to be reminded that all his grandeur, from his silken tunic to the sword at his hip, the chariot they ride in and the six white stallions with purple plumes in their manes, are all gifts from his mistress. For all his pride, he is still a kept man. "Forgive me, I-"

He does not wait to hear her poor, shambling excuses. He grabs her arms, his fingers squeezing like iron bands. "You will not misspeak before the khal tonight. If you do, I swear they will be the last words you speak." He brings her face so close to hers that she can smell the sour wine on his breath. "You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

"No," she whispers feebly. She might have imagined herself a dragon when she spoke to Bellegere and brought her low but Viserys reminds her once again of who and what she is.

"A whore," he says, "I sold you when you were a child and it is time I was given what was mine." In Terre D'Ange to serve in the Thirteen Houses is a signal honor, but across the waters (as Viserys never fails to remind her) she would be the lowest of the low. Once she had dared to ask him if she was such a humiliation to him, why had he sold her to Dahlia House in the first place? That had been wrong of her. She had woken the dragon and for days she had to powder the bruises and bite marks on her body. The Dowayne must never know.

He examines her critically. "You should have been bedded years ago, when you first began to bleed. But the D'Angelines have the queerest customs, sixteen years and still a maid." In the darkness of the coach his hands slip under her low cut gown and find her breasts. He squeezes them as he has ever since they first began to bud, to remind her of her place as a whore he says. "But accomplished, I expect. Make the khal love you, sweet sister, and perhaps I will too."

She bats away the tears that tremble in her eyes, wondering how the Dowayne ever accepted her into Dahlia House. _My bloodline is a proud one, but I never was. _By the time they have been announced into the ballroom, she is bright and smiling again. She catches a glimpse of herself as they pass the mirror in the foyer and thinks she does Viserys credit. _I am beautiful and I have been trained in the arts of love, _she thinks wildly, _he must love me, surely he must. _

There is no mistaking the khal. The guests sway in silks and satins in pastel and watercolor shades, like pale wraiths in a painting, but he is not one to blend in, he was made to stand out. She smiles, thinking what Lady Rousse must make of him in his painted leather vest and sandsilk trousers. He is so fierce, so out-of-place and yet magnificent that Viserys stifles a laugh and looks around for the outraged lady of the manse. The khal's sleek oiled hair reaches to his buttocks, when unbound it will be a river of darkness. The thought makes her shiver, for tonight she shall have the honor of unbinding it - a dubious honor that she does only for duty, for her brother's love_. Surely he must love me. _

No doubt her ladyship will complain to her husband that he has quite spoiled her picturesque soiree and her husband will hem and haw but in the end, what can they do? The D'Angelines throw open their manses and their cities whenever the Dothraki pass by on their way to the slavers' markets in the east, as they do every few years - out of sheer laziness, Daenerys sometimes thinks. _Balls come cheaper than battles._

"Khal Drogo," she says, stepping out to greet him. She curtseys deeply to him, as she would a visiting royal, and comes up smiling. "You look magnificent." These are simple words and she repeats them in her slow, halting Dothraki. The words are not beautiful, not melodic as becomes an adept of the Night Court but his flat, onyx eyes seem to spark with interest when she speaks them in his tongue.

Briskly he shoots off a question. "I am sorry," she falters, "I have only a few words..." She flushes. If he were a regular patron, she might ask him to dance to put them both at their ease but Dothraki men do not dance. Their women do, to entice lovers. She realizes that they have nothing in common and so she sits quietly at his side.

_A man and a maid do not need to talk, _she thinks. But it would be sweeter to come to a bed knowing the man she would be sharing it with. She has practiced the arts of love since she began to bleed, but practicing is not the same as a performance. She sips from a flute of tart white wine, fighting a rising wave of panic. _Smile, hold your head high, be proud, be regal. You will not shame yourself, your house and your brother. He bought you for a night so that he might know what it was like to lie with a virgin princess, so that your status might add to his own. Do not disappoint him. _

But she has never felt so unregal, so childlike in her life.

"Dance?" he says, the accent so rough and guttural that she has to ask him to repeat the word before she understands.

"Do you speak D'Angeline?" she asks and he shakes his head. So he has only a few words, the same as she. It touches her more than she can say - which as well, for she would never know how to say them to him.

"Yes," she whispers and her smile is genuine now, not a gaudy show for the sharp-eyed spectators. "Yes, I will be honored to dance with you."


	4. Balm

**Balm - **_Rest and Be Soothed _

* * *

It is said when Naamah gave herself to the King Persis to earn Blessed Elua his freedom, she did with compassion heavy in her heart, compassion over the plight of blessed Elua, and compassion for the King of Persis. Her kiss was like a soothing balm, and with that and a tender caresses, she persuaded the King to forget his worries and concern for one evening as she brought him peace. Compassion is the canon of House Balm and their motto is rest and be soothed. When patrons come to House Balm, it soothing and compassion that adepts bring them.

* * *

She had the startled look of a bird about to take flight when he pointed to her. "The redhead," he decided. Sandor Clegane had never been a man of peace, he did not belong in this place where the leaves cast green, lacy shadows on the stone and where the women wore the colors of sunrise and where the scent of lemons lingered in their hair and skin. But he had gold in his pouch from the King's tourney and by the gods, he meant to spend it.

The girl made as if to shrink away, she could not have been more than sixteen he thought and new to her trade. But the Dowayne did not blink. "Sansa will be pleased to attend to you, my lord," she murmured. "Despite her tender years, she is much skilled in the healing arts."

"Bugger the healing arts," he snorted. "If I want a healer, I go to the chirugeons' guild. If I want to fuck something, I go to the whores' guild." He tossed a fistful of gold coins on the floor, before the Dowayne. The woman's eyes flickered - for all her cursed mealy-mouthedness she liked the glitter of gold as well as any dockside doxy, pulling up her skirts for scurvy sailors every night. But she was too dignified to kneel and scrape for coins - a curly-haired little adept rushed to do it for her. "Will that do for a night?"

The Dowayne nodded briefly, as if conversation would be too much of a trial at this point. "It is adequate."

The girl's hands were as soft and white as cotton-blossoms. "My lord, be welcome," she said. "I hope that I might be pleasing to you."

"I'm no lord," he told her shortly, latching on to her wrist like an iron vice. For a moment her carefully cultivated smile wavered and she said uncertainly, "I meant it as a courtesy. I did not seek to offend."

_Pretty little bird, _he thought. _Mouthing those pretty little words they taught you. _

Naked she was as pure and perfect as she was in her gauzy blue robes. The marquist had only begun to etch out her marquee, she had many years before it would be finished. "I can't be your first," he mocked her, sampling the wines laid out for them while he watched her strip. "Do you even know what number I am?"

"Perhaps the twelfth," she said serenely, raising her arms to loosen the braids piled on top of her head. "Or the twentieth. Or the two hundredth. Does it matter? Blessed Elua bid as love as we would." Her hair came down in a shower of honey and copper, rich autumnal colors. "But you are not a man of these parts, my-"

"Call me Sandor," he said. "I'm a mercenary."

"You serve the Dauphin," she murmured and her eyes softened, as women's inevitably did when they thought of Joffrey. He was the picture of the gallant prince, golden curls and emerald eyes and beauty as keen as a blade. There was not a woman in the country who would not have tumbled willingly into his bed - even his own mother, it was whispered. "I have seen you shadowing him when he rides through the streets, it is a most noble occupation."

"Call a spade a spade, girl," he said as she knelt before him to unlace his boots. "I'm his Dog." He swatted her hands away from his feet and presented the bulging front of his breeches to her. "You can unlace those later, right now its this that needs working on."

He had her twice that night before pausing for respite, delighting in the violet blotches that marked her pale, pale flesh. She smiled even when he hurt her, she had been well-trained. That made him feel a little guilty, that bright, brave smile of hers but he pushed that thought away. Joffrey would have done worse - but then Joffrey was wise enough to indulge his pleasures at Valerian. _Love as thou wilt. _It was more than a precept in Terre d'Ange, it was law and heresy was punishable by execution - even for the Dauphin.

"May I massage you?" she warbled, his blue-eyed songbird. "It is a special skill of ours at Balm and I would be loath to let you leave before you had tried our more subtle pleasures."

He rolled over and she knelt beside him on the wrinkled sheets. Her hands were soft but strong and she kneaded over the raw, burned flesh as though it were smooth and whole. "Did I hurt you, little bird?" he asked her gruffly. He did not care, of course. She was only another whore, a beautiful, beautiful, young whore but a whore all the same.

"No, Sandor," she said. "It is nothing I have not seen before. The man who first took my maidenhead-" She hesitated. "Forgive me, we are not supposed to talk about our patrons."

She smelt of something sharp and sweet, he decided, flowers with a hint of something acrid beneath them. He could not puzzle it out. "You never asked me how I came by my scars. Most girls do."

"Most girls haven't received the training I have," she said pleasantly. "It is a sacred calling, no matter what you think of us, and I try to do my best to live up to Naamah's precepts."

And because she was not curious in the least, because she was so calm and clean and untouched by life, he told her. He told her about his brother. She listened without a word as she worked scented oil through the knots in his back. She slid into a loose robe, teal silk made in the Ch'in fashion and embroidered with red-breasted robins and doves with coral feet. The colors came to life against her white skin and red hair, making her glow against the muted hues of the chamber. If he had walked in on her unannounced, he would have sworn that she was a goddess from the old tales.

She rested her fingers against his eyes, closing them gently. "Did it bring you peace, Sandor?"

"No," he lied. When she bent to kiss him gently, he could feel her smile as though she knew his word for a lie. He brought his hand up to loosen the belt at her waist but she shifted.

"Wait a while, my eager lover," she laughed and crossed the room to fetch a harp. He watched her for the sheer pleasure of looking at her and then he listened while she played. He was not a man for music, but there was something in those sad, sweet chords that stirred him. Her eyes were stark blue, like a lake in winter, and surprisingly grave for her years.

"The man who first paid for the pleasure of spilling my maiden's blood," she said. "He waited for the chance since I was a child. He swore he'd loved my mother but he watched her go to her death without blinking." She held herself very stiffly, as though she had never had a chance to say the words. "My parents and brothers were executed as traitors. My sister fled and I have no idea, even now, of where she is. Far across the sea, I pray. I was sold to the Night Court. It is a sacred calling, I know, but... perhaps not the one that I would have chosen for myself."

When she was not smiling sweetly, her features seemed to sharpen into something almost vulpine. More wolf than bird. "He thinks I love him," she said. "Men and their vanity. I have never loved him and I never will. He thinks to wed me after I have made my marquee and am free from the Night Court. He thinks that I will give him red-haired sons and daughters and that my name will lift his to greatness. He is a fool."

"You're only a wh-" he did not say the word, something in the way the girl held herself, her pride and dignity made it too hurtful. She was not a whore. "Only a little girl. What can you do?"

"Oh," she smiled softly. "I'm not a little girl anymore, Sandor, though I was for too long, a frightened, foolish little girl. But I am a woman now and I have magic of my own." And from the glitter in her frost-blue eyes and the crooked curve of her red lips, he knew it to be true.


End file.
